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en-usSun, 02 Aug 2015 16:24:10 -0400Sun, 02 Aug 2015 16:24:10 -0400The latest news from Small Businesshttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/ignition-speakers-james-murdoch-and-jim-cramer-2015-7ANNOUNCING: James Murdoch, Carolyn Everson, Jim Cramer and more will speak at IGNITION 2015http://www.businessinsider.com/ignition-speakers-james-murdoch-and-jim-cramer-2015-7
Mon, 27 Jul 2015 15:54:49 -0400Business Insider
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55b11b4469bedd8e11f8c793-620-/jamesmurdoch-2.jpg" border="0" alt="James Murdoch" width="620"></p><p>We're thrilled to announce that the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/21st-century-fox-names-james-murdoch-ceo-2015-6" target="_blank">new CEO of 21st Century Fox</a>,<span>&nbsp;</span>James Murdoch, will speak at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/event/ignition-2015">IGNITION, Business Insider's flagship conference on the future of digital</a>.</p>
<p>Murdoch was recently elevated to run the company along with his brother, Lachlan, who was named executive co-chairman. He has said he believes India is set to be the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/james-murdoch-speaking-at-cannes-lions-2015-6" target="_blank">"single greatest opportunity over the next five to 10 years."</a> You can hear more about Murdoch's vision for the future of media if you <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/event/ignition-2015">secure your ticket now</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to Murdoch, we've lined up heavy-hitters like TheStreet's Jim Cramer, Facebook's Carolyn Everson, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, and others to weigh in on cutting-edge trends and innovations affecting the digital world.</p>
<p>For the sixth year running, we're gathering 700+ senior executives from the converging worlds of media, technology, and marketing at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/event/ignition-2015">IGNITION</a>. Some of the brightest minds in their industries will explore the latest thinking in digital business. Will you be among them?</p>
<p><span>Here's the speaker lineup so far:</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55ad58b16bb3f7fd603deb05-811-641/screen shot 2015-07-20 at 4.22.14 pm.png" border="0" alt="IGNITION Speakers 2015"></p>
<ul>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Ben Barokas, </strong>Founder &amp; CEO, Sourcepoint</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Jeff Bewkes,</strong> CEO, Time Warner Inc.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Yoni Bloch,</strong>&nbsp;Founder &amp; CEO, Interlude</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Henry Blodget,</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;CEO &amp; Editor-in-Chief, Business Insider</span></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Mike Hopkins,</strong> CEO, Hulu</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Pat Keane,</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;President, Sharethrough</span></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Jonathan Klein,</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;Co-Founder &amp; Chairman, Getty Images</span></li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Alexander Klöpping,</strong> Founder, Blendle</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Jim Lanzone,</strong> President &amp; CEO, CBS Interactive</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Mark Mahaney,</strong> Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Lowell McAdam,</strong> CEO, Verizon</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Gene Munster,</strong>&nbsp;Senior Research Analyst, Piper Jaffray</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Stephanie Retblatt,</strong> Chief Brainiac, Smarty Pants</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Kevin Ryan, </strong>Chairman &amp; Founder, Gilt</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Adam Singolda,</strong> CEO, Taboola</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;"><strong>Anthony Wood,</strong>&nbsp;Founder &amp; CEO, Roku</li>
<li style="margin-bottom: 0em;">And many more to come...</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/event/ignition-2015">IGNITION</a> will take place&nbsp;<strong>December 8-9</strong>&nbsp;at the Time Warner Center in New York City. Over the next few months we'll be releasing the names of more speakers and panels, so stay tuned for all the updates.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://businessinsider.ticketleap.com/ignition-2015/dates/Dec-08-2015_at_0730AM" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.businessinsider.com/image/4dc973824bd7c81957340000-320-76/button_registernow_blue.gif" border="0" alt="Register Now"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Follow&nbsp;<strong><a href="https://twitter.com/BI_Events" target="_blank">@BI_Events</a></strong>&nbsp;on Twitter or join the IGNITION group on&nbsp;<strong><a href="http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Business-Insiders-IGNITION-4014755?trk=groups_management_submission_queue-h-dsc" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a>&nbsp;</strong>to find out who will be speaking at IGNITION 2015.</em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hudson-hotel-photos-2015-7" >Heading to IGNITION? Here's why you should book a room at the Hudson Hotel right now </a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ignition-speakers-james-murdoch-and-jim-cramer-2015-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> 21Chttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/small-business-e-commerce-infographic-2015-7Here's a step-by-step guide to taking your business onlinehttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/small-business-e-commerce-infographic-2015-7
Thu, 23 Jul 2015 10:00:00 -0400Sponsor Post
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<p>The actual process of building a website, designing it, and <a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/how-online-payments-really-work?utm_source=business%20insider&amp;utm_medium=link&amp;utm_campaign=infographic" target="_blank">setting up an online payment system</a> can be overwhelming. That's why we've partnered with PayPal to create an infographic that helps small business owners understand the step-by-step process — and overall costs — involved in launching an online business. Check out the infographic below.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant?utm_source=business%20insider&amp;utm_medium=link&amp;utm_campaign=infographic" target="_blank"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55b25b306bb3f76f2905baae-844-5564/paypal---the-startup-roadmap_final.png" border="0" alt="Paypal The Startup Roadmap_FINAL"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/social-selling-ebook?utm_source=business%20insider&amp;utm_medium=link&amp;utm_campaign=infographic" target="_blank"><strong>Learn more about social selling.</strong></a></p>
<p><em>This post is sponsored by <a href="https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/merchant?utm_source=business%20insider&amp;utm_medium=link&amp;utm_campaign=infographic" target="_blank">PayPal</a>.</em></p>
<p>Find out <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts" target="_blank">more about Sponsored Content</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/small-business-e-commerce-infographic-2015-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> PayPalhttp://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-cheskys-greatest-leadership-lesson-2015-6How an Airbnb renter's horror story taught the company's CEO his greatest leadership lessonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-cheskys-greatest-leadership-lesson-2015-6
Sat, 04 Jul 2015 13:05:00 -0400Richard Feloni
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55915def6da811e563b77f22-600-/brian-chesky-airbnb-sophia-amoruso.jpg" border="0" alt="brian chesky airbnb sophia amoruso" width="600"></p><p>Some investors, like Silicon Valley star <a href="https://twitter.com/sacca/status/432947011537489920">Chris Sacca</a>, refrained from investing early in Airbnb, which was founded in 2008, due to fears of the disasters that could happen when people share their homes with complete strangers.</p>
<p>The first <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-not-safe-the-renter-stolen-identity-and-destroyed-her-life-2011-7">Airbnb horror story</a> that made waves in the media happened in June 2011, when the renter of a woman's San Francisco home destroyed the apartment, took her valuables, and stole her identity while she was traveling for business.</p>
<p><a href="http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html">Her personal blog post describing the scene</a> went viral, and the media waited for Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky to address it.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://fortune.com/brian-chesky-airbnb/">a new Fortune profile by Leigh Gallagher</a>, this crisis resulted in the most significant leadership lesson Chesky learned as CEO.</p>
<p>The renter wrote on her blog that it took 14 hours to get a response from Airbnb, and that the company's straightforward apology was insufficient. Chesky and the Airbnb executive team knew they had to react publicly and strongly, Fortune reports, but couldn't settle on a direction.</p>
<p>Weeks went by as the renter's story attracted more attention. Finally, in August, Chesky made a decision.</p>
<p>"I finally had this really dark moment and I got to the point where I wouldn't say I stopped caring, but my priorities completely changed," <a href="http://fortune.com/brian-chesky-airbnb/">Chesky told Fortune</a>. "And I basically said I should stop managing for the outcome and just manage to the principle."</p>
<p>He <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-blog-post-2011-8">wrote on Airbnb's blog</a> that after finding out about the disaster, "We felt paralyzed, and over the last four weeks, we have really screwed things up... We should have responded faster, communicated more sensitively, and taken more decisive action to make sure she felt safe and secure. But we weren't prepared for the crisis and we dropped the ball."</p>
<p>He then announced that Airbnb would issue $50,000 in protection to renters, a decision that Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen helped Chesky arrive at. Chesky decided to announce this guarantee despite the advice he received within the company to test it before making it universal.</p>
<p>The embarrassment and frustration of the experience taught Chesky the lesson he considers the most important of his career: "A consensus decision in a moment of crisis is very often going to be the middle of the road, and they're usually the worst decisions. Usually in a crisis you have to go left or right."</p>
<p>Fortune reports that Chesky's announcement earned him a tremendous amount of respect within the company, representing his maturation into a true CEO.</p>
<p>Further, Chesky's decision influenced the company's direction toward providing more safeguards to customers as it grew. As of January, Airbnb upped its guarantee from $50,000 <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/host-protection-insurance">to $1 million for renters in the US</a> — with the caveat that the guest and renter's insurance companies must be solicited before Airbnb's insurance takes effect.</p>
<p>Chesky now finds himself at the head of a company that is much larger than it was four years ago. <a href="the%20Wall%20Street%20Journal%20reports%20is%20internally%20valued%20at%20$24%20billion">The Wall Street Journal reports</a> it is internally valued at $24 billion and continues to grow.</p>
<p>To learn more about Chesky's real-world management education, <a href="http://fortune.com/brian-chesky-airbnb/">check out the full Fortune profile</a>.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-chesky-got-advice-from-cia-director-george-tenet-2015-6" >A former CIA director gave Airbnb's CEO some smart management advice</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-cheskys-greatest-leadership-lesson-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-when-quit-your-job-start-company-2015-5">The surprising reason 'Shark Tank' investor Robert Herjavec started his own company</a></p> Michael Kovac/Gettyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-lessons-from-georges-st-pierre-2015-6What 'Shark Tank' investor Robert Herjavec learned from legendary UFC fighter Georges St. Pierrehttp://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-lessons-from-georges-st-pierre-2015-6
Tue, 30 Jun 2015 12:59:00 -0400Richard Feloni
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/554b735d6bb3f7492c881fca-600-/robert-herjavec-5.jpg" border="0" alt="robert herjavec" width="600"></p><p>"Shark Tank" investor and cyber security entrepreneur Robert Herjavec takes his athletic hobbies as seriously as his business ventures, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-judge-robert-herjavec-life-and-biography-in-photos-2015-6">whether it's running marathons or racing cars</a>.</p>
<p>It's why he often finds <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-key-lesson-2015-4">parallels between sports and business</a>, using lessons from one to benefit the other.</p>
<p><span>Herjavec</span>&nbsp;once learned a particularly valuable lesson after meeting Georges St. Pierre, the semi-retired, three-time UFC mixed martial arts champion, according to his 2014 book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1443409871/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1443409871&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thebusiinsi-20&amp;linkId=O3POIWHIMLYOG336" target="_blank">The Will To Win</a>."</p>
<p>Herjavec says St. Pierre is one of the most interesting people he's ever met, and St. Pierre's approach to training taught him about priorities.</p>
<p>"Power is efficiency," St. Pierre told Herjavec. "It is not necessarily strength or endurance."</p>
<p>St. Pierre competed in the welterweight class, meaning he's not that big of a guy, at about 5 feet 10 inches and 170 pounds. It's not hard to find an athlete who can lift more weight or run further than he can. But it is hard to find someone who could beat him in a fight.</p>
<p>"Georges and other UFC fighters need enough strength to last just five rounds, but more than anything else, they need to draw upon sudden strength at key moments," Herjavec writes. "UFC fighters need training to develop 'fast-twitch' muscles, powerful responses from the body that occur almost before they realize they're needed."</p>
<p>Herjavec saw a useful metaphor in this insight.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5591bab16da811c47579bdaf-1000-665/georges st pierre.jpg" border="0" alt="georges st pierre"></p>
<p>An entrepreneur or a veteran business executive can become so focused on developing or maintaining their business that they lose sight of the competition. They may think their product or service is so exceptional that it's all they need to continue growing.</p>
<p>But if they don't also take into account how quickly their competitors can react, they'll be defeated.</p>
<p>"If you have the endurance to reject mediocrity and reach the highest goals you set for yourself, congratulations," Herjavec writes. "And if you develop enough strength for yourself, your team, and your organization to exert the power to get things done, you have achieved a good deal."</p>
<p>"But if," he continues, "you lack the response of fast-twitch muscles, the ability to turn on the power as soon as it's needed instead of mulling over the situation while the opportunity fades, you're handicapping yourself."</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-when-to-quit-job-entrepreneur-2015-5" >'Shark Tank' investor Robert Herjavec explains how to know you should quit your job and become a full-time entrepreneur</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-lessons-from-georges-st-pierre-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-when-quit-your-job-start-company-2015-5">The surprising reason 'Shark Tank' investor Robert Herjavec started his own company</a></p> "Beyond the Tank"/ABChttp://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-on-transparency-with-mark-zuckerberg-2015-6Sheryl Sandberg explains the most valuable aspect of her relationship with Mark Zuckerberghttp://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-on-transparency-with-mark-zuckerberg-2015-6
Mon, 29 Jun 2015 17:42:00 -0400Richard Feloni
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5591a793eab8eaa37afdc432-480-/sheryl-sandberg-mark-zuckerberg-3.jpg" border="0" alt="sheryl sandberg mark zuckerberg" width="480"></p><p>Sheryl Sandberg knew when she joined Facebook as its COO in 2007, her success at the company depended on her relationship with founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-to-grads-nothing-is-somebody-elses-problem-2015-6">she told the graduating class of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management</a>&nbsp;on Saturday.</p>
<p>She immediately asked Zuckerberg if he would be willing to give her feedback every week, including any problems he may have. He not only liked the idea, <span>Sandberg&nbsp;</span>said in her commencement speech, he wanted the relationship to be reciprocal.</p>
<p>"For the first few years, we stuck to this routine and met every Friday afternoon to voice concerns big and small," she said. "As the years went by, sharing honest reactions became part of our relationship, and we now do so in real time rather than waiting for the end of the week."</p>
<p><span>Sandberg</span>&nbsp;explained how much she admires Zuckerberg's willingness to accept criticism from the people who work for him, saying she knows firsthand that it can be difficult to develop transparency between bosses and employees.</p>
<p>For example, she told the Tsinghua graduates, in her early days of Facebook she would encourage her employees not to use PowerPoint presentations when they met as a team so that meetings didn't feel so formal and rigid. After two years, she declared that PowerPoints were no longer allowed in meetings with her.</p>
<p>"About a month later I was about to address our global sales team," <span>Sandberg</span>&nbsp;said, "when someone said to me, 'Before you get on that stage, you really should know everyone's pretty upset about the no PowerPoint with clients thing.'"</p>
<p>She was shocked, since slideshows were necessary for client meetings. She just didn't want meetings with her own employees to feel like client meetings.</p>
<p>It showed her that the level of transparency she built with Zuckerberg should be applied to all levels of the company — and all companies, for that matter. If employees were too afraid to speak with their bosses honestly, misunderstandings could result in problems that affected the business.</p>
<p>Sandberg <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-to-grads-nothing-is-somebody-elses-problem-2015-6">told the graduates</a> that after she learned about the misinterpretation of her PowerPoint rule, she told her team that the "next time you hear a bad idea — like not doing proper client presentations — speak up. Even if you think it is what I have asked for, tell me I am wrong!"</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-to-grads-nothing-is-somebody-elses-problem-2015-6" >Sheryl Sandberg to grads: 'Nothing is somebody else’s problem'</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sheryl-sandberg-on-transparency-with-mark-zuckerberg-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-olearys-greatest-business-lesson-shark-tank-2015-5">This is the greatest business lesson 'Shark Tank’s' Kevin O’Leary ever learned</a></p> "Charlie Rose"/PBShttp://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-cheskys-greatest-leadership-lesson-2015-6How an Airbnb renter's horror story taught the company's CEO his greatest leadership lessonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-cheskys-greatest-leadership-lesson-2015-6
Mon, 29 Jun 2015 12:36:00 -0400Richard Feloni
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55915def6da811e563b77f22-600-/brian-chesky-airbnb-sophia-amoruso.jpg" border="0" alt="brian chesky airbnb sophia amoruso" width="600"></p><p>Some investors, like Silicon Valley star <a href="https://twitter.com/sacca/status/432947011537489920">Chris Sacca</a>, refrained from investing early in Airbnb, which was founded in 2008, due to fears of the disasters that could happen when people share their homes with complete strangers.</p>
<p>The first <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-not-safe-the-renter-stolen-identity-and-destroyed-her-life-2011-7">Airbnb horror story</a> that made waves in the media happened in June 2011, when the renter of a woman's San Francisco home destroyed the apartment, took her valuables, and stole her identity while she was traveling for business.</p>
<p><a href="http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html">Her personal blog post describing the scene</a> went viral, and the media waited for Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky to address it.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://fortune.com/brian-chesky-airbnb/">a new Fortune profile by Leigh Gallagher</a>, this crisis resulted in the most significant leadership lesson Chesky learned as CEO.</p>
<p>The renter wrote on her blog that it took 14 hours to get a response from Airbnb, and that the company's straightforward apology was insufficient. Chesky and the Airbnb executive team knew they had to react publicly and strongly, Fortune reports, but couldn't settle on a direction.</p>
<p>Weeks went by as the renter's story attracted more attention. Finally, in August, Chesky made a decision.</p>
<p>"I finally had this really dark moment and I got to the point where I wouldn't say I stopped caring, but my priorities completely changed," <a href="http://fortune.com/brian-chesky-airbnb/">Chesky told Fortune</a>. "And I basically said I should stop managing for the outcome and just manage to the principle."</p>
<p>He <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-blog-post-2011-8">wrote on Airbnb's blog</a> that after finding out about the disaster, "We felt paralyzed, and over the last four weeks, we have really screwed things up... We should have responded faster, communicated more sensitively, and taken more decisive action to make sure she felt safe and secure. But we weren't prepared for the crisis and we dropped the ball."</p>
<p>He then announced that Airbnb would issue $50,000 in protection to renters, a decision that Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen helped Chesky arrive at. Chesky decided to announce this guarantee despite the advice he received within the company to test it before making it universal.</p>
<p>The embarrassment and frustration of the experience taught Chesky the lesson he considers the most important of his career: "A consensus decision in a moment of crisis is very often going to be the middle of the road, and they're usually the worst decisions. Usually in a crisis you have to go left or right."</p>
<p>Fortune reports that Chesky's announcement earned him a tremendous amount of respect within the company, representing his maturation into a true CEO.</p>
<p>Further, Chesky's decision influenced the company's direction toward providing more safeguards to customers as it grew. As of January, Airbnb upped its guarantee from $50,000 <a href="https://www.airbnb.com/host-protection-insurance">to $1 million for renters in the US</a> — with the caveat that the guest and renter's insurance companies must be solicited before Airbnb's insurance takes effect.</p>
<p>Chesky now finds himself at the head of a company that is much larger than it was four years ago. <a href="the%20Wall%20Street%20Journal%20reports%20is%20internally%20valued%20at%20$24%20billion">The Wall Street Journal reports</a> it is internally valued at $24 billion and continues to grow.</p>
<p>To learn more about Chesky's real-world management education, <a href="http://fortune.com/brian-chesky-airbnb/">check out the full Fortune profile</a>.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-chesky-got-advice-from-cia-director-george-tenet-2015-6" >A former CIA director gave Airbnb's CEO some smart management advice</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-ceo-brian-cheskys-greatest-leadership-lesson-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/shark-tank-robert-herjavec-when-quit-your-job-start-company-2015-5">The surprising reason 'Shark Tank' investor Robert Herjavec started his own company</a></p> Michael Kovac/Gettyhttp://www.businessinsider.com/a-counterintuitive-strategy-for-doing-better-work-in-groups-2015-6How being politically correct at work can boost your performancehttp://www.businessinsider.com/a-counterintuitive-strategy-for-doing-better-work-in-groups-2015-6
Mon, 29 Jun 2015 11:18:00 -0400Shana Lebowitz
<p class="p1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/558dbea76da811642ee177df-600-/office-coworkers-meeting-5.jpg" border="0" alt="office coworkers meeting" width="600"></p><p>To facilitate creativity in a group brainstorming session, it seems like you'd want people to say whatever comes to their mind, with as little filtering as possible.</p>
<p class="p1">But new research suggests imposing constraints on people's thinking processes can actually make them more creative.</p>
<p class="p1">The <a href="http://asq.sagepub.com/content/60/1/1.abstract">study</a>, led by <span>Cornell University's&nbsp;</span>Jack Goncalo, Ph.D., found that mixed-gender groups that thought about political correctness generated more original ideas than other similar teams.</p>
<p class="p1">That could be because men tend to avoid saying or acting in certain ways that women might perceive as offensive, while women are hesitant to share ideas that might be rejected altogether. So members of both genders generally share fewer novel ideas&nbsp;in mixed-gender settings.</p>
<p class="p2">Yet when everyone thinks about being politically correct, men may become more aware of the specific language to avoid, and women may assume they'll be treated more fairly.</p>
<p class="p1">In one experiment designed to test this phenomenon, the researchers divided participants into same-sex and mixed-sex groups. Some participants were asked to think about ways to be either politically correct, sensitive, or polite; others simply wrote about what they had done the day before. Finally, all groups spent 10 minutes generating ideas for a new business to fill a vacant lot.</p>
<p class="p1">Results showed that the mixed-sex groups that thought about political correctness were significantly more creative than all the other mixed-sex groups.</p>
<p class="p1">Among same-sex groups, those that thought about political correctness were ultimately less creative. That's possibly because the task seemed irrelevant or inappropriate when all members of the group belonged to the same sex.</p>
<p class="p1">The researchers write that leaders should consider the composition of their groups when thinking about how to best foster creativity. Specifically, in mixed-sex groups, talking about political correctness might be a way to reduce conflict and stimulate ideation.</p>
<p class="p1">Still, the researchers note that over time, members of mixed-sex teams could become more familiar with one another, and thinking about political correctness may not be such a useful strategy. Moreover, team members may start to notice other, deeper types of diversity, such as differences in values.</p>
<p class="p1">But for situations in which coworkers are just getting to know each other, thinking or talking about political correctness may be a simple, if counterintuitive, strategy for getting them to loosen up a little.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/collaboration-isnt-effective-at-problem-solving-2015-5" >Why working in big groups won't help you solve big problems</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/a-counterintuitive-strategy-for-doing-better-work-in-groups-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-olearys-greatest-business-lesson-shark-tank-2015-5">This is the greatest business lesson 'Shark Tank’s' Kevin O’Leary ever learned</a></p> Flickr/Infusionsofthttp://www.businessinsider.com/samuel-adams-founder-jim-koch-on-craft-beer-revolution-2015-6Billionaire Sam Adams founder tells us why his father said the beer business was a terrible career choicehttp://www.businessinsider.com/samuel-adams-founder-jim-koch-on-craft-beer-revolution-2015-6
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 06:58:22 -0400Richard Feloni
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5584331569bedd1706796a77-1200-1491/jim%20koch%20portrait_tbi%20interview.png" border="0" alt="Jim Koch Portrait_TBI Interview"></p><p><em>When Jim Koch left a successful career at Boston Consulting Group in 1984 to start Boston Beer Co., the idea of making an impression in a beer market dominated by domestics such as Budweiser and imports including Heineken seemed outlandish.</em></p>
<p><em> But with his flagship product, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Koch has become a prominent figure in the industry, and his company produces an estimated 1% of all beer in the US.</em></p>
<p><em> Boston Beer Co. had a record 2014, bringing in $903 million in revenue and selling 4.1 million barrels of beer and cider in all 50 states and about 30 countries.</em></p>
<p><em>We spoke with Koch about his career, the evolution of the American beer industry, and how he approaches leadership and management.</em></p>
<p><em>This interview has been edited for clarity and length.</em></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Business Insider: When did you know you wanted to start your own business?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jim Koch:</strong> I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. This was the '70s. Going to Harvard Law School or Harvard Business School was a pretty established path.</p>
<p>But I looked back on it, and I guess there may have been some of the born elements. When I was in high school I did some jobs like mowing lawns and paving driveways in August — something no one in southern Ohio wants to do. And when I started Sam Adams, in 1984, those experiences were very important. I was basically a beer-delivery guy coming into the back of a restaurant and getting treated like crap. It didn't bother me, though.</p>
<p>And a few years ago, I realized I've never been in a job where I have a boss. I've always had some mild problems with authority.</p>
<p>Before I started my company, I was a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group for almost seven years. I had kind of learned what I was gonna learn about business. I felt like, well, I don't want to be a management consultant for the rest of my life.</p>
<p><strong>Why beer?</strong></p>
<p>I grew up around beer. My dad was a brewmaster. So beer has been part of my life ever since I can remember. I had my first beer at 4.</p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img class="float_left" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/558439d66bb3f7bd55c71a1f-3125-3886/bi_graphics_sam%20adams%20chart%202-02.png" border="0" alt="The Jim Koch Bio" width="500" height="622">You've said that your father thought it was a terrible idea to get into the beer industry.</strong></p>
<p>Yes. Because he had been a brewmaster when the beer industry was going through this terrible consolidation. When he got into brewmaster school, in 1948, there were 1,000 breweries. When I started Sam Adams, there were maybe 40.</p>
<p>He didn't think I could compete with the big brewers, with the Bud, Miller, and Coors. And it took him a while to grasp what I was doing, because it was so different. And I said, look, I am not trying to compete with those guys. I am trying to make something better. Richer, more flavorful, higher quality, and I'm gonna charge twice the money. And I think I can make a little niche out of that.</p>
<p>I was making beer for 1% of the market.</p>
<p><strong>What role do you think Sam Adams played in the growing popularity of craft beers?</strong></p>
<p>I can't tell you it happened quickly. It really took 20-something years. When I started, even the term "craft beer" didn't exist. We were called micros, and it was this radical idea.</p>
<p>It was a long, slow process for the education of a consumer. I had been in thousands of bars, doing wait-staff education, where I'd come in with the ingredients in beer and show them the malt and the hops. I'd show them the hops extract and explain that this is the shortcut that a lot of imported beers use. These are real hops. This is malt.</p>
<p>Beer was sold on the advertising and the marketing of a brand, not the ingredients, brewing process, and the passion of a brewer.</p>
<p>Once people start drinking Sam Adams — or, now, all the craft beers out there — you can't go back.</p>
<p><strong>Now that you've achieved your goal of creating a world where Americans appreciate beer, how do you deal with your place in a growing craft-beer market?</strong></p>
<p>To me, this is a lot better world than when I started. Because it was lonely. And now I've got a lot of company. There's no sense trying to start a revolution if nobody wants to follow. We've always tried to be a leader, and leadership doesn't work if there's no followers.</p>
<p>For example, after Boston Lager, I started making seasonal beers. Nobody was doing this. And now that's kind of one of the mainstays of craft brewing. And in the early '90s, we became the first brewer to age beer in bourbon barrels.</p>
<p>We've had increasing competition for 25 years, with more and more people coming into craft brewing. And that just makes us better. That pushes me to continue to raise the quality level and to continue to innovate and make new beers.</p>
<p><strong><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/558442b96bb3f7ad14c71a11-1000-1500/barrel-4.jpg" border="0" alt="jim koch samuel adams" width="600"></strong>What are some new things you're developing?</strong></p>
<p>There's a whole bunch of new beers that we're working on. We're making beer that is not carbonated, but rather nitrogenated, which completely changes the flavor profile. Beer doesn't necessarily have to be carbonated. It wasn't carbonated until 150 years ago.</p>
<p>We're also exploring some very traditional flavors in beer that have disappeared, like hard root beer, which was very common in the 18th century.</p>
<p><strong>In 2008 you started the Brewing the American dream program to mentor entrepreneurs and provide them with loans. What inspired it?</strong></p>
<p>I've long held the belief that as a business, you need to recognize your role in the greater community and acknowledge that you need to do more than just make money for your shareholders.</p>
<p>And that's become trendy now, but I actually wrote an article in 1976 in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, and the theme was that data proved businesses that recognize a social mission do better financially than businesses that don't. Forty years ago, that was a pretty extreme idea, against the ideas of the popular economist Milton Friedman.</p>
<p>For many years, we did a lot of philanthropic things, supported charities, some of our local neighborhood organizations. There was a time in 2007 when we painted a community center in our neighborhood that needed renovation. It was one of those "feel good" things and everybody reacted positively to it, but I remember walking back to my car, thinking, "You know, I don't feel that great about what we just did."</p>
<p><strong>Why's that?</strong></p>
<p>What's exciting about being an entrepreneur is that you add value, hopefully in new ways. And what bothered me about that day is we probably spent $20,000 worth of management time to do $3,000 worth of mediocre painting. And that wasn't, at least to me, adding value.</p>
<p>So I decided to go back to the drawing board and treat our social mission with the same level of creativity and innovation that we brought to the beer business.</p>
<p>After a year of developing an idea, we realized we were good at growing a small business and being creative and that we can bring that to up-and-coming businesses.</p>
<p>I wondered, well, what would have been really useful to me when I was starting Sam Adams? What did I need that wasn't available? And the two things were access to loan money — 'cause nobody would lend me money — and second, nuts-and-bolts business advice. You know, not big, strategic philosophical stuff.</p>
<p>When I started Sam Adams, I had an MBA from Harvard, a law degree from Harvard, six or seven years of management consulting. But guess what? I didn't know how to make a sales call. I didn't know how to design a label. I didn't know how to do a real-estate lead or set up a payroll. I didn't know how to get publicity for my business.</p>
<p>So we decided that Brewing the American dream could bring that to small businesses in the industries we know: food, beverage, hospitality.</p>
<p><strong><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55843a656da8115f5c0d63fd-5000-5000/bi_graphics_sam%20adams%20chart%202-01.png" border="0" alt="Sam Adams Craft Beer Revolution Chart"></strong>What's the program like?</strong></p>
<p>It's free, but there's a cap on participants. We ask the entrepreneurs to come with real problems, like determining how to hire a salesperson or get their product into retailers.</p>
<p>And before arriving, they can sign up online for 20-minute sessions typically with six different coaches. We call it "speed coaching" because it's a bit like speed dating.</p>
<p>We discovered that 20 minutes of solid advice can take people from zero to 80% or 90% of where they need to be in a particular area. And that's plenty good.</p>
<p>We've had over 4,000 entrepreneurs go through coaching since launching in 2008.</p>
<p>We've also made about 400 loans through our nonprofit microlending partner, Accion, and the total loan amount has been about $4 million. The loan repayment rate is 98.1%, and the average collection period is two to three years.</p>
<p>We develop long-term relationships with all of the entrepreneurs we've made loans to, as well as many from the coaching sessions.</p>
<p><strong>What's the most common advice you give entrepreneurs?</strong></p>
<p>The most common thing I remind people of is to only pursue something you love, because a small business is going to be very demanding of your time, your energy — it just eats your life. And if you're doing something you love, then you will accept and even enjoy that. If you're just doing it to get rich, you're gonna lose heart.</p>
<p>I tell everyone, getting rich is life's biggest booby trap. It comes down to what would you rather be, happy or rich? I say do what's gonna make you happy.</p>
<p><strong>Which books have shaped your business philosophy or worldview?</strong></p>
<p>I love to read, so there's a lot. I'll give you a couple of interesting ones.</p>
<p>The first one is by an industrial engineer named Edward Demings. It's called "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262541157/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0262541157&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thebusiinsi-20&amp;linkId=3YIPKYLVVV7HZXBC" target="_blank">Out of the Crisis</a>." Demings was the father of the quality-control movement. He was revered in Japan, and it led to Japanese firms making some of the highest-quality products in the world.</p>
<p>The book's written in a colloquial Midwest style. I learned a lot from that.</p>
<p>And the second is by the physicist Thomas Kuhn, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226458121/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226458121&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=bizuckbooks-20&amp;linkId=HMLGFTGHQS5ZPTBM" target="_blank" data-skimlinks-orig-link="">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a>." He coined the term "paradigm shift."</p>
<p>The book helped me think about removing the blinders and not think within constraints, to be able to say, "I know this is the way the world is, but why can't it be different and better?"</p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong><strong><img class="float_left" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/55843d7469bedd7049796a79-3125-3542/bi_graphics_sam%20adams%20chart%202-03.png" border="0" alt="Beer market share in the US 2014 Sam Adams Pie Chart" width="500"></strong></strong>What has the industry taught you?</strong></p>
<p>I've always approached brewing with a sense of humility and reverence. Because it's been around for 12,000 years, and no matter what you do, you're only going to add one more brick into this wall.</p>
<p>So in that spirit, I learned to fail small and often. I've had innumerable failures, and I've done 'em quick and moved on.</p>
<p>It's beer, you know. It's not like I'm trying to come out with a new iPhone. We probably make 50 batches for every beer that the consumer sees. So in that sense, for one successful beer, we have 49 failures.</p>
<p><strong>You became a billionaire in 2013. How has that affected you?</strong></p>
<p>Oh, I don't care. It is what it is. It's actually sort of funny, because as the stock goes up and down, depending on the day, I might be a billionaire or I might be an ex-billionaire.</p>
<p>I think after the last earnings amount, it wiped out like $50 million worth of my value. You might think, "Oh, that's terrible." No, it's not! I never in my life thought I'd have that kind of money to lose. So I think it's pretty cool.</p>
<p><strong>Does that success become a burden when you try to approach business as the underdog?</strong></p>
<p>That kind of thing is a purely financial metric, driven by Wall Street. And I've learned to ignore all of these short-term ups and downs of stock price. Because what I care about is the health of the company long-term.</p>
<p>So I'm worried about, where are we in two years? In five years? How do I make this the best, strongest, healthiest company I can?</p>
<p>If you become driven by what Wall Street values instead of what your drinkers value, you're making a big mistake.</p>
<p><strong>What does drive you?</strong></p>
<p>I remember when we went public. We sold shares to the public, via coupons, on the six-packs. The investment banks hated it, but I was determined we were going to do it. We got $65 million in the mail.</p>
<p>We sold shares to the public, at $15 per share, and to the big investment banks and institutions, for $20 per share. I remember a fund manager berating me for that, and he says: "Wait a minute! You know, I buy lots of shares, I should be the one getting a lower price, not all these beer drinkers."</p>
<p>And I said, "Well, are you a beer drinker?" And he said, "No, I drink wine." I said: "Well, that's my point. I don't need you. I need all those beer drinkers. So they're getting the lower price, not you."</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/558440a86da8119b100d63fa-1200-800/jim &amp; samuel adams beers today.jpg" border="0" alt="jim koch samuel adams" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/brooklyn-brewerys-growth-2014-7" >How Brooklyn Brewery tripled sales in 5 years without traditional advertising</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samuel-adams-founder-jim-koch-on-craft-beer-revolution-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/draft-beer-vs-bottled-better-brooklyn-brewery-2015-3">Is draft beer better than bottled beer?</a></p> Mike Nudelman/Business Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com/samuel-adams-founder-jim-koch-on-craft-beer-revolution-2015-6Billionaire Sam Adams founder explains how he helped spark the craft-beer revolutionhttp://www.businessinsider.com/samuel-adams-founder-jim-koch-on-craft-beer-revolution-2015-6
Sun, 21 Jun 2015 22:08:00 -0400Richard Feloni
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5584331569bedd1706796a77-1200-1491/jim%20koch%20portrait_tbi%20interview.png" border="0" alt="Jim Koch Portrait_TBI Interview"></p><p><em>When Jim Koch left a successful career at Boston Consulting Group in 1984 to start Boston Beer Co., the idea of making an impression in a beer market dominated by domestics such as Budweiser and imports including Heineken seemed outlandish.</em></p>
<p><em> But with his flagship product, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Koch has become a prominent figure in the industry, and his company produces an estimated 1% of all beer in the US.</em></p>
<p><em> Boston Beer Co. had a record 2014, bringing in $903 million in revenue and selling 4.1 million barrels of beer and cider in all 50 states and about 30 countries.</em></p>
<p><em>We spoke with Koch about his career, the evolution of the American beer industry, and how he approaches leadership and management.</em></p>
<p><em>This interview has been edited for clarity and length.</em></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Business Insider: When did you know you wanted to start your own business?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jim Koch:</strong> I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. This was the '70s. Going to Harvard Law School or Harvard Business School was a pretty established path.</p>
<p>But I looked back on it, and I guess there may have been some of the born elements. When I was in high school I did some jobs like mowing lawns and paving driveways in August — something no one in southern Ohio wants to do. And when I started Sam Adams, in 1984, those experiences were very important. I was basically a beer-delivery guy coming into the back of a restaurant and getting treated like crap. It didn't bother me, though.</p>
<p>And a few years ago, I realized I've never been in a job where I have a boss. I've always had some mild problems with authority.</p>
<p>Before I started my company, I was a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group for almost seven years. I had kind of learned what I was gonna learn about business. I felt like, well, I don't want to be a management consultant for the rest of my life.</p>
<p><strong>Why beer?</strong></p>
<p>I grew up around beer. My dad was a brewmaster. So beer has been part of my life ever since I can remember. I had my first beer at 4.</p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img class="float_left" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/558439d66bb3f7bd55c71a1f-3125-3886/bi_graphics_sam%20adams%20chart%202-02.png" border="0" alt="The Jim Koch Bio" width="500" height="622">You've said that your father thought it was a terrible idea to get into the beer industry.</strong></p>
<p>Yes. Because he had been a brewmaster when the beer industry was going through this terrible consolidation. When he got into brewmaster school, in 1948, there were 1,000 breweries. When I started Sam Adams, there were maybe 40.</p>
<p>He didn't think I could compete with the big brewers, with the Bud, Miller, and Coors. And it took him a while to grasp what I was doing, because it was so different. And I said, look, I am not trying to compete with those guys. I am trying to make something better. Richer, more flavorful, higher quality, and I'm gonna charge twice the money. And I think I can make a little niche out of that.</p>
<p>I was making beer for 1% of the market.</p>
<p><strong>What role do you think Sam Adams played in the growing popularity of craft beers?</strong></p>
<p>I can't tell you it happened quickly. It really took 20-something years. When I started, even the term "craft beer" didn't exist. We were called micros, and it was this radical idea.</p>
<p>It was a long, slow process for the education of a consumer. I had been in thousands of bars, doing wait-staff education, where I'd come in with the ingredients in beer and show them the malt and the hops. I'd show them the hops extract and explain that this is the shortcut that a lot of imported beers use. These are real hops. This is malt.</p>
<p>Beer was sold on the advertising and the marketing of a brand, not the ingredients, brewing process, and the passion of a brewer.</p>
<p>Once people start drinking Sam Adams — or, now, all the craft beers out there — you can't go back.</p>
<p><strong>Now that you've achieved your goal of creating a world where Americans appreciate beer, how do you deal with your place in a growing craft-beer market?</strong></p>
<p>To me, this is a lot better world than when I started. Because it was lonely. And now I've got a lot of company. There's no sense trying to start a revolution if nobody wants to follow. We've always tried to be a leader, and leadership doesn't work if there's no followers.</p>
<p>For example, after Boston Lager, I started making seasonal beers. Nobody was doing this. And now that's kind of one of the mainstays of craft brewing. And in the early '90s, we became the first brewer to age beer in bourbon barrels.</p>
<p>We've had increasing competition for 25 years, with more and more people coming into craft brewing. And that just makes us better. That pushes me to continue to raise the quality level and to continue to innovate and make new beers.</p>
<p><strong><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/558442b96bb3f7ad14c71a11-1000-1500/barrel-4.jpg" border="0" alt="jim koch samuel adams" width="600"></strong>What are some new things you're developing?</strong></p>
<p>There's a whole bunch of new beers that we're working on. We're making beer that is not carbonated, but rather nitrogenated, which completely changes the flavor profile. Beer doesn't necessarily have to be carbonated. It wasn't carbonated until 150 years ago.</p>
<p>We're also exploring some very traditional flavors in beer that have disappeared, like hard root beer, which was very common in the 18th century.</p>
<p><strong>In 2008 you started the Brewing the American Dream program to mentor entrepreneurs and provide them with loans. What inspired it?</strong></p>
<p>I've long held the belief that as a business, you need to recognize your role in the greater community and acknowledge that you need to do more than just make money for your shareholders.</p>
<p>And that's become trendy now, but I actually wrote an article in 1976 in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, and the theme was that data proved businesses that recognize a social mission do better financially than businesses that don't. Forty years ago, that was a pretty extreme idea, against the ideas of the popular economist Milton Friedman.</p>
<p>For many years, we did a lot of philanthropic things, supported charities, some of our local neighborhood organizations. There was a time in 2007 when we painted a community center in our neighborhood that needed renovation. It was one of those "feel good" things and everybody reacted positively to it, but I remember walking back to my car, thinking, "You know, I don't feel that great about what we just did."</p>
<p><strong>Why's that?</strong></p>
<p>What's exciting about being an entrepreneur is that you add value, hopefully in new ways. And what bothered me about that day is we probably spent $20,000 worth of management time to do $3,000 worth of mediocre painting. And that wasn't, at least to me, adding value.</p>
<p>So I decided to go back to the drawing board and treat our social mission with the same level of creativity and innovation that we brought to the beer business.</p>
<p>After a year of developing an idea, we realized we were good at growing a small business and being creative and that we can bring that to up-and-coming businesses.</p>
<p>I wondered, well, what would have been really useful to me when I was starting Sam Adams? What did I need that wasn't available? And the two things were access to loan money — 'cause nobody would lend me money — and second, nuts-and-bolts business advice. You know, not big, strategic philosophical stuff.</p>
<p>When I started Sam Adams, I had an MBA from Harvard, a law degree from Harvard, six or seven years of management consulting. But guess what? I didn't know how to make a sales call. I didn't know how to design a label. I didn't know how to do a real-estate lead or set up a payroll. I didn't know how to get publicity for my business.</p>
<p>So we decided that Brewing the American dream could bring that to small businesses in the industries we know: food, beverage, hospitality.</p>
<p><strong><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55843a656da8115f5c0d63fd-5000-5000/bi_graphics_sam%20adams%20chart%202-01.png" border="0" alt="Sam Adams Craft Beer Revolution Chart"></strong>What's the program like?</strong></p>
<p>It's free, but there's a cap on participants. We ask the entrepreneurs to come with real problems, like determining how to hire a salesperson or get their product into retailers.</p>
<p>And before arriving, they can sign up online for 20-minute sessions typically with six different coaches. We call it "speed coaching" because it's a bit like speed dating.</p>
<p>We discovered that 20 minutes of solid advice can take people from zero to 80% or 90% of where they need to be in a particular area. And that's plenty good.</p>
<p>We've had over 4,000 entrepreneurs go through coaching since launching in 2008.</p>
<p>We've also made about 400 loans through our nonprofit microlending partner, Accion, and the total loan amount has been about $4 million. The loan repayment rate is 98.1%, and the average collection period is two to three years.</p>
<p>We develop long-term relationships with all of the entrepreneurs we've made loans to, as well as many from the coaching sessions.</p>
<p><strong>What's the most common advice you give entrepreneurs?</strong></p>
<p>The most common thing I remind people of is to only pursue something you love, because a small business is going to be very demanding of your time, your energy — it just eats your life. And if you're doing something you love, then you will accept and even enjoy that. If you're just doing it to get rich, you're gonna lose heart.</p>
<p>I tell everyone, getting rich is life's biggest booby trap. It comes down to what would you rather be, happy or rich? I say do what's gonna make you happy.</p>
<p><strong>Which books have shaped your business philosophy or worldview?</strong></p>
<p>I love to read, so there's a lot. I'll give you a couple of interesting ones.</p>
<p>The first one is by an industrial engineer named Edward Demings. It's called "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262541157/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0262541157&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=thebusiinsi-20&amp;linkId=3YIPKYLVVV7HZXBC" target="_blank">Out of the Crisis</a>." Demings was the father of the quality-control movement. He was revered in Japan, and it led to Japanese firms making some of the highest-quality products in the world.</p>
<p>The book's written in a colloquial Midwest style. I learned a lot from that.</p>
<p>And the second is by the physicist Thomas Kuhn, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226458121/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226458121&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=bizuckbooks-20&amp;linkId=HMLGFTGHQS5ZPTBM" target="_blank" data-skimlinks-orig-link="">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions</a>." He coined the term "paradigm shift."</p>
<p>The book helped me think about removing the blinders and not think within constraints, to be able to say, "I know this is the way the world is, but why can't it be different and better?"</p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><strong><strong><img class="float_left" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/55843d7469bedd7049796a79-3125-3542/bi_graphics_sam%20adams%20chart%202-03.png" border="0" alt="Beer market share in the US 2014 Sam Adams Pie Chart" width="500"></strong></strong>What has the industry taught you?</strong></p>
<p>I've always approached brewing with a sense of humility and reverence. Because it's been around for 12,000 years, and no matter what you do, you're only going to add one more brick into this wall.</p>
<p>So in that spirit, I learned to fail small and often. I've had innumerable failures, and I've done 'em quick and moved on.</p>
<p>It's beer, you know. It's not like I'm trying to come out with a new iPhone. We probably make 50 batches for every beer that the consumer sees. So in that sense, for one successful beer, we have 49 failures.</p>
<p><strong>You became a billionaire in 2013. How has that affected you?</strong></p>
<p>Oh, I don't care. It is what it is. It's actually sort of funny, because as the stock goes up and down, depending on the day, I might be a billionaire or I might be an ex-billionaire.</p>
<p>I think after the last earnings amount, it wiped out like $50 million worth of my value. You might think, "Oh, that's terrible." No, it's not! I never in my life thought I'd have that kind of money to lose. So I think it's pretty cool.</p>
<p><strong>Does that success become a burden when you try to approach business as the underdog?</strong></p>
<p>That kind of thing is a purely financial metric, driven by Wall Street. And I've learned to ignore all of these short-term ups and downs of stock price. Because what I care about is the health of the company long-term.</p>
<p>So I'm worried about, where are we in two years? In five years? How do I make this the best, strongest, healthiest company I can?</p>
<p>If you become driven by what Wall Street values instead of what your drinkers value, you're making a big mistake.</p>
<p><strong>What does drive you?</strong></p>
<p>I remember when we went public. We sold shares to the public, via coupons, on the six-packs. The investment banks hated it, but I was determined we were going to do it. We got $65 million in the mail.</p>
<p>We sold shares to the public, at $15 per share, and to the big investment banks and institutions, for $20 per share. I remember a fund manager berating me for that, and he says: "Wait a minute! You know, I buy lots of shares, I should be the one getting a lower price, not all these beer drinkers."</p>
<p>And I said, "Well, are you a beer drinker?" And he said, "No, I drink wine." I said: "Well, that's my point. I don't need you. I need all those beer drinkers. So they're getting the lower price, not you."</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/558440a86da8119b100d63fa-1200-800/jim &amp; samuel adams beers today.jpg" border="0" alt="jim koch samuel adams" style="line-height: 1.5em;"></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/brooklyn-brewerys-growth-2014-7" >How Brooklyn Brewery tripled sales in 5 years without traditional advertising</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/samuel-adams-founder-jim-koch-on-craft-beer-revolution-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/draft-beer-vs-bottled-better-brooklyn-brewery-2015-3">Is draft beer better than bottled beer?</a></p> Mike Nudelman/Business Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/peached-tortilla-tacos-austin-2015-6Why one lawyer gave up a 6-figure salary to serve tacos from a truckhttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/peached-tortilla-tacos-austin-2015-6
Wed, 17 Jun 2015 10:30:00 -0400Sponsor Post
<p><a href="http://thepeachedtortilla.com" target="_blank"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5571a2786da8110e0bd193c7-828-621/ericthe-peached-tortilla.jpeg" border="0" alt="EricThe Peached Tortilla"></a></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Sometimes, when food trucks go brick-and-mortar, they’ll drive the food truck into the restaurant," says Eric Silverstein, referring to those who try to replicate the same menu and persona.</span></p>
<p>But it's a different game, and Silverstein knows the struggle firsthand.</p>
<p>As the founder of <a href="http://www.thepeachedtortilla.com/" target="_blank">The Peached Tortilla</a> in Austin, Texas, he's hustled to execute his vision of marrying cuisines to create items that some might deem strange — like bánh mì tacos, Nutella spring rolls, and bacon-jam fries.</p>
<p>Born in Japan and raised in Georgia, Silverstein gave up his stable law career to cook Asian- and Southern-inspired food. Today, he runs several food trucks, a catering business, and, as of November, a brick-and-mortar space with full bar service.</p>
<p>Much of The Peached Tortilla's success has been tied to social media. "You can spend all the money you want on print advertising, but it's not as effective as social media," says Silverstein, who has seen The Peached Tortilla's <a href="http://instagram.com/peachedtortilla" target="_blank">Instagram</a> swell to nearly 20,000 followers and who writes a <a href="http://www.thepeachedtortilla.com/blog/" target="_blank">blog</a> about his experience in the food industry.</p>
<p>We spoke with Silverstein as part of our <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/fast-track" target="_blank">Fast Track Q&amp;A</a> series, in which we're asking small-business owners the same questions about their professional and personal inspirations. Silverstein shared the importance of growing smart, his favorite business personality, and the hardest part of running a food truck. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/fast-track" target="_blank"><strong>Read more in the series here »</strong></a></p>
<p><strong>BI Studios: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Eric Silverstein:</strong> I wanted to be a sports agent ever since I was in high school and saw "Jerry Maguire." I took a lot of steps to try to do it. I interned in college and at a huge sports-management company in Chicago. I worked for the former manager of Riddick Bowe and former boxing promoter of Mike Tyson in Las Vegas.</p>
<p>The whole reason I went to law school was to be a sports agent. After law school, I went to work at a firm that represented athletes. I thought I was going to go that route, but it kind of fizzled.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5571bf096da8116c5ed193c6-1088-816/the-peached-tortilla-tacos.jpeg" border="0" alt="The Peached Tortilla tacos"></p>
<p><strong>How did you get the idea for your business?</strong></p>
<p>I originally wanted to open a restaurant but had trouble funding it. My sister in LA told me about this Korean taco truck, <a href="http://kogibbq.com/" target="_blank">Kogi</a>. I was so intrigued. I got on Twitter to start following all of these LA food trucks and watched videos on YouTube. From there I was like, how can I do this somewhere else?</p>
<p>I didn't want to do this in LA, because it was really competitive. Austin is pretty competitive, too, but it was more of a food-trailer scene than a food-truck scene. There was only one food truck that moved around at the time. The other ones came later. Timing-wise, we got it right.</p>
<p><strong>How did you pick the name of your business?</strong></p>
<p>I grew up in Georgia, the Peach State. I wanted to pay homage to Georgia, but I also wanted a name that didn't necessarily make sense and was kind of funky. "Peached" doesn't mean a whole lot to the average person, so we can define what it means.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What is the biggest risk you've taken in your career?</strong></p>
<p>Quitting a six-figure, stable law job to do something that really doesn't pay off the bat. Owning a food truck is really challenging. It's the hours and the dollar value associated with those hours. I would work 24 hours straight to make $1,000 in a day.</p>
<p>My frame of reference was tilted. I had been making $100,000 at the age of 24, and now I was working five times harder and making no money. I was ready to give it all up about six months in. The physical toll of it all had taken a lot out of me. I would go do a lunch service and then a late night service, open at 7 p.m., stay open until 2:30 a.m., clean the truck, drive 30 minutes back home, et cetera. That wiped away the glamour of a food truck really quickly.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What's the strangest request you've ever gotten from a customer?</strong></p>
<p>When I was single, a lot of moms would try to set me up with their daughters. After I got married, a group of older Jewish women were in the restaurant and asked if I was single, because they all had daughters for me.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>What is your greatest talent?</strong></p>
<p>My work ethic and my willingness to work hard and sacrifice. I don't think you can be successful in food trucks or the restaurant business unless you're willing to dedicate yourself to the craft and make sacrifices. That involves your personal life. You need to give up some of the things that you love to run a business.</p>
<p><strong>What was your first job?</strong></p>
<p>I was 16 and washing dishes at Einstein Bros Bagels during the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. I had to wake up at 5 in the morning and they paid me $6 an hour — it was minimum wage in Georgia at the time. I learned that I never wanted to do that again.</p>
<p><strong>What’s the weirdest job you ever had?</strong></p>
<p>I worked for Rock Newman, a boxing promoter in Vegas. My parents moved to Vegas and I lived across the street from him. He managed Riddick Bowe, promoted Mike Tyson, and was a frequent contributor on "The Best Damn Sports Show Period." I was an intern for him and would do whatever he wanted: take his clothes in to get dry-cleaned, take his car in to get fixed, research NBA players, and basically just hang out with him for three months. It was a great experience, because I got to see someone who was a bulldog and a vicious businessman. I was only 21.</p>
<p><strong>Which entrepreneur or business personality do you most admire?</strong></p>
<p>I like Marcus Lemonis from CBNC's "The Profit." I try to diagnose my own business after watching the other businesses on the show. He always talks about the people, the product, and the process. He's fun to watch, and I admire his thinking.</p>
<p><strong>If you had a superpower, what would it be?</strong></p>
<p>I would love to go into people's minds and see what makes them tick. That's the toughest thing: figuring out how to motivate people. If you can figure that out, you'll have a much more flourishing business. At the end of the day, it's all about people. If you can find out what makes them happy, what makes them tick, and what makes them push that extra 20%, you'll be golden.</p>
<p><strong>What advice would you give to entrepreneurs?</strong></p>
<p>Exercise patience. There will be a lot of points where you're going to question yourself and the business. There will be downturns. It's like the stock market — if you look at everything within a three-month span, you might see it go way up or way down. But if you look at it over the course of three or four years, you might see a trend that is moving upward. You cannot get caught up in the day-to-day ups and downs, although that is easier said than done. Try to look at the big picture and understand that you're in this for 10, 15, 20 years.</p>
<p><strong>What's the biggest thing you've learned about managing your finances?</strong></p>
<p>Every business wants to grow, but I want to grow smart, when we're ready. People can grow too aggressively. Anyone who wants to be successful in business has to have a good understanding of financials. For me, I want to be on steady ground before I grow. Before I do that, I have to know how profitable we are, what our assets are, and if we have the right people in place. One of the most important meetings I have every month is with my bookkeeper, where we go over the numbers and anything that looks out of line.</p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="https://sparkbusinessiq.com/?utm_source=business_insider&amp;utm_medium=sponsored&amp;utm_campaign=bau_m" target="_blank">www.SparkBusinessIQ.com</a> for more inspiring stories, tools, tips, and resources to ignite positive change for your business.</strong></p>
<p><em>This post is sponsored by <a href="http://www.capitalone.com/small-business/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Spark Business<sup>®</sup>&nbsp;from Capital One<sup>®</sup></a>.</em></p>
<p>Find out <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts">more about Sponsored Content</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/peached-tortilla-tacos-austin-2015-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> The Peached Tortillahttp://www.businessinsider.com/hottest-los-angeles-startups-2015-425 hot Los Angeles startups you need to watchhttp://www.businessinsider.com/hottest-los-angeles-startups-2015-4
Sun, 17 May 2015 09:37:00 -0400Melissa Stanger and Maya Kosoff
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hottest-los-angeles-startups-2015-4">Read it here »</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hottest-los-angeles-startups-2015-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/hottest-los-angeles-startups-2015-425 hot Los Angeles startups you need to watchhttp://www.businessinsider.com/hottest-los-angeles-startups-2015-4
Tue, 12 May 2015 09:01:00 -0400Maya Kosoff and Melissa Stanger
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55393cc0eab8ea2222ac5d57-1200-924/laurel-and-wolf-4.jpg" border="0" alt="laurel and wolf"></p><p>Los Angeles may be a few hundred miles south of Silicon Valley, but it's a hub brimming with up-and-coming tech startups.</p>
<p>We've compiled a list&nbsp;<span>of 25 of the hottest startups in the Los Angeles area. To do so, we spoke with investors, employees, journalists, and&nbsp;active members of the city's tech scene.</span></p>
<p>Though our list includes some big names, it also features young startups, some of which you may not have heard of yet.&nbsp;</p><h3>Acorns is an app that automatically invests your spare change for you.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/553698e4eab8ea506767867d-400-300/acorns-is-an-app-that-automatically-invests-your-spare-change-for-you.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>What it is:</strong> When you download <a href="http://www.acorns.com">Acorns</a>, you link up your credit or debit card to the app. Every time you use your card to make a purchase, Acorns rounds the amount up to the next dollar and invests the change from that purchase into a diversified portfolio of index funds.</p>
<p>The app, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/easy-investing-app-acorns-raises-23-million-series-c-round-2015-4">which was founded in 2012</a>, is perfect for beginning investors because it doesn't require much knowledge of investing, and it charges you only a dollar a month if your account has a balance of less than $5,000.</p>
<p><strong>Founders:</strong> Jeff and Walter Cruttenden</p>
<p><strong>Funding:</strong> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/easy-investing-app-acorns-raises-23-million-series-c-round-2015-4">$32 million</a> from e.ventures, Greycroft Partners, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Math Venture Partners, Garland Capital Group, Sound Ventures, Jacobs Asset Management, Groundswell Investments, Steelpoint Capital Partners, and Cruttenden Partners</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>The Black Tux is an online-only tux rental site.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55369c49eab8ea4476678686-400-300/the-black-tux-is-an-online-only-tux-rental-site.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>What it is:</strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://theblacktux.com/">The Black Tux</a>, founded in 2012, is the first online-only tux rental service; it does it all, from suit design to production to rental logistics. When you decide to rent, The Black Tux sends you measuring tape and instructions on how and where to measure.</p>
<p>Your measurements are used to perfectly tailor your tux, which arrives in the mail one week before your event. Total rental cost averages around $150 &mdash; far cheaper for better quality than many other tux rental services and without the commitment of buying a nice tux.</p>
<p><strong>Founders:</strong>&nbsp;Andrew Blackmon, Patrick Coyne</p>
<p><strong>Funding:</strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/the-black-tux">$15 million</a> from&nbsp;<span>The Raine Group, Menlo Ventures, First Round, BoxGroup, RRE Ventures, Crosscut Ventures, Founder Collective, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures</span></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>BloomNation is an online marketplace for florists to promote and sell their arrangements.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/53fdf15f6bb3f76e53c6708d-400-300/bloomnation-is-an-online-marketplace-for-florists-to-promote-and-sell-their-arrangements.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>What it is:</strong>&nbsp;With <a href="http://www.bloomnation.com/">BloomNation</a>, florists can upload pictures of their own arrangements (so they don't have to rely on stock photos) and enable potential customers around the US to discover and buy them.</p>
<p>It's an easier and more customizable and reliable way to buy and sell flowers. Founded in 2011, BloomNation also helps florists with their online sales, from building websites to point-of-sale systems, e-marketing, and social media.</p>
<p><strong>Founders:</strong>&nbsp;Farbod Shoraka, Gregg Weisstein, and David Daneshgar</p>
<p><strong>Funding:</strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bloomnation">$7.2 million</a> from CrunchFund, Mucker Capital, Chicago Ventures, Spark Capital, Chris Dixon, A Capital Partners L.P., and Andreessen Horowitz</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hottest-los-angeles-startups-2015-4#burner-is-an-app-that-allows-you-to-create-temporary-disposable-phone-numbers-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> Laurel + Wolfhttp://www.businessinsider.com/best-small-business-owner-in-every-state-2015-5The best small business owner in every statehttp://www.businessinsider.com/best-small-business-owner-in-every-state-2015-5
Tue, 05 May 2015 15:36:00 -0400Richard Feloni and Shana Lebowitz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/55478cec6da811522a6ee126-600-/mainesba.jpg" border="0" alt="maine_SBA" width="600"></p><p></p>
<p><span>Small businesses are responsible for two-thirds of new jobs created in the US and employ nearly half of the nation's workforce, <a href="https://www.sba.gov/blogs/national-small-business-week-begins-today">according to the US Small Business Administration</a>.<br></span></p>
<p><span>This week&nbsp;<span>the SBA is honoring these businesses and their owners as part of&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sba.gov/nsbw/nsbw">National Small Business Week</a>, an annual tradition since 1963.</span></p>
<p>To highlight outstanding growth and innovation, the SBA has <a href="https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/articles/Nomination%20Materials.pdf">selected</a> a small business person of the year in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and three US territories.</p>
<p>This year's winners include an animal shelter in Maine, a candy shop in Idaho, and a solar energy company in California.</p><h3>ALABAMA: Donna Coleman, Aetos Systems Inc.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5547880eeab8eaba0c69139d-400-300/alabama-donna-coleman-aetos-systems-inc.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>In 2007, Coleman founded <a href="https://www.aetossystems.com/Home.aspx">Aetos Systems</a>, a Huntsville-based information technology and engineering services company geared toward government and commercial clients.</p>
<p>A year later, Aetos became a prime contractor for clients including NASA and the US Department of Defense. The company currently employs 48 people and has over $9 million in revenues.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>ALASKA: Renee L. Schofield, Tongass Substance Screening</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55478ab4eab8eaaf2469139b-400-300/alaska-renee-l-schofield-tongass-substance-screening.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Schofield used a $20,000 small business loan to acquire <a href="http://www.tss-safety.com/">TSS</a> in 1999. At that point, she was the company's only employee &mdash; on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide drug and alcohol testing.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Today, the company's 14 employees operate out of Alaska, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri, serving 325 clients and 7,000 people.&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>ARIZONA: Michael T. Melton, ClearCall Solutions</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/55478ad4ecad040e33baa38f-400-300/arizona-michael-t-melton-clearcall-solutions.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Since 2001, Melton has launched several businesses that fall under the umbrella of <a href="http://clearcallsolutions.com/">ClearCall Solutions</a>, a Chandler-based inbound call center focusing on customer acquisition.</p>
<p>In the last five years, the company has experienced 255% revenue growth, from $9.7 to $32.8 million, and added 280 employees.</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-small-business-owner-in-every-state-2015-5#arkansas-joel-t-johnson-pi-roofing-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> SBAhttp://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-houston-2015-4The 18 coolest new businesses in Houstonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-houston-2015-4
Sun, 19 Apr 2015 10:29:00 -0400Emmie Martin
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-houston-2015-4">Read the piece here »</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-houston-2015-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/startup-payroll-fines-2015-433% of startups get fined for the same reasonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/startup-payroll-fines-2015-4
Tue, 14 Apr 2015 10:00:00 -0400Sponsor Post
<p><a href="http://www.justworks.com/?utm_source=business_insider&amp;utm_medium=sponsored_post&amp;utm_campaign=33-startups-get-fined-april" target="_blank"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/55196ebb6bb3f72154bf9822-1200-924/young-girl-doing-taxes.jpg" border="0" alt="Young girl doing taxes"></a><em>This post is sponsored by&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justworks.com/?utm_source=business_insider&amp;utm_medium=sponsored_post&amp;utm_campaign=33-startups-get-fined-april" target="_blank">Justworks</a>.</em></p>
<p>Running a business is stressful enough. But on top of that, one-third of all small-business owners get slapped with payroll penalties every year.</p>
<p>The main problem is that many of them do their payroll manually. 46% don't have an accountant, according to a survey from GoDaddy, and that means they don't always comply with all the various local, state, and <a href="http://blog.justworks.com/federal-requirements-for-setting-up-payroll-in-a-new-business" target="_blank">federal requirements</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it's <a href="http://www.nsba.biz/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NSBA-Tax-Survey-2014.pdf" target="_blank">costing them</a>. In fact, the IRS issued a staggering total of $4.5 billion in penalties to US businesses in 2013 — all because of payroll errors.</p>
<p>It's easy to see how mistakes are made. For starters, there are more than 15,000 tax codes in the US, many of which change frequently. Tax regulations, such as overtime, vary from state to state. Companies need to factor in variable salaries, commissions, and performance-based bonuses. And taxes need to be filed with different authorities, all of which have their own deadlines.</p>
<p>So how do you protect your business from payroll fines? Most importantly, don't try to handle payroll on your own. Instead, hire an accountant or outsource payroll to a specialist like&nbsp;<a href="http://www.justworks.com/?utm_source=business_insider&amp;utm_medium=sponsored_post&amp;utm_campaign=33-startups-get-fined-april" target="_blank">Justworks</a>,&nbsp;a New York-based startup that manages payroll, benefits, and compliance for a range of companies across the tech, legal, and financial sectors. (It also offers extremely competitive medical insurance rates in New York City.)</p>
<p>Through Justworks, you can hire employees across multiple states without needing to register for state or local withholding tax. If you are fined for a compliance issue, Justworks will cover the fine.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In addition to avoiding penalties, another huge advantage of using a payroll specialist like Justworks — and its streamlined, easy-to-use platform — is saving time, which is crucial if you're trying to grow your business. Qubit, a customer of Justworks, actually <a href="http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/438036/file-2628419017-pdf/blog-files/QubitCaseStudy.pdf?t=1428010323964?utm_source=business_insider&amp;utm_medium=sponsored_post&amp;utm_campaign=33-startups-get-fined-april" target="_blank">reduced its time spent on payroll by 75%</a>.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, successful business owners recognize their weaknesses and know when to ask for help. They tend to focus on the big picture and leave the nitty gritty, like taxes and payroll, to those with the time and expertise to take care of them.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.justworks.com/?utm_source=business_insider&amp;utm_medium=sponsored_post&amp;utm_campaign=33-startups-get-fined-april" target="_blank">Sign up for a free demo of Justworks&nbsp;and save 20% off your first year with the code "Insider."</a></strong></p>
<p>Find out&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts">more about Sponsored Content</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/startup-payroll-fines-2015-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Getty Imageshttp://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-boston-2015-3The coolest new businesses in Bostonhttp://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-boston-2015-3
Tue, 24 Mar 2015 12:25:00 -0400Melissa Stanger
<p>The small business scene in Boston is blossoming. From a make-your-own-beer brewery to a steakhouse speakeasy, we found the coolest new businesses in Beantown.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-boston-2015-3">Check out the businesses here »</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-new-businesses-in-boston-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/yeti-coolers-2015-3How one outdoorsman built a 'grizzly proof' cooler and turned it into a multimillion-dollar business http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/yeti-coolers-2015-3
Tue, 17 Mar 2015 10:00:00 -0400Sponsor Post
<p><a href="http://dell.com" target="_blank"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54ff02baecad045e68d4bdd3-1148-861/yeti-coolers.jpg" border="0" alt="Yeti Coolers"></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Some of the best business ideas are spun from a personalized, DIY mentality. After all, if you can't find something you want, why not make it from scratch?</span></p>
<p>That was the case for Roy Seiders, a self-professed outdoorsman who couldn't find the right cooler for his fishing expeditions. In 2006, Roy and his brother Ryan set out to make a cooler they would want to use. The result? A <a href="http://yeticoolers.com/coolers/shop-by-category/tundra-series/" target="_blank">heavy-duty, nearly indestructible ice chest</a>&nbsp;that comes with a five-year warranty.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Today their company,&nbsp;<a href="http://yeticoolers.com/" target="_blank">YETI Coolers</a>,&nbsp;sells more than just "grizzly proof" premium coolers.<span>&nbsp;</span>YETI also offers drinkware, clothing, and other outdoor gear.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In building their coolers, the Seiders rely heavily on Dell technology — specifically</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;the&nbsp;</span><a href="http://dell.com/precision-m3800" target="_blank">Dell Precision M3800</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the world's thinnest and lightest 15-inch mobile workstation. T<span>he M3800 has a 4K ultra HD display (that's more than eight million pixels) and&nbsp;</span>allows visual effects editors, graphic designers, and engineers&nbsp;to transform sketches into 3D models that can be shared with other teams.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The M3800 workstation is just one example of how Dell is helping small businesses grow. </span><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Watch the video below to learn more about how YETI Coolers uses Dell technology to make high-quality products.</strong></span></p>
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<noscript>&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;div&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Please enable Javascript to watch this video&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/div&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;</noscript>
<p><strong>&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p><strong>Talk to a small business expert to learn more about why millions of small businesses choose Dell. <a href="http://dell.com" target="_blank">Visit their website</a> or call 1-877-414-Dell.</strong></p>
<p><em>This post is sponsored by <a href="http://go.redirectingat.com/?id=35871X943606&amp;site=businessinsider.com&amp;xs=1&amp;isjs=1&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dell.com%2F&amp;xguid=ca34065b03f164474e3eb1deba31fb57&amp;xuuid=43b731177483efcbab47447af78b7290&amp;xsessid=21180541ff89d87dae7c92cc9c3b0802&amp;xcreo=0&amp;xed=0&amp;sref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fsc%2Fsmall-business-tips-2015-3&amp;pref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fcategory%2Fsponsor-post%3Fpage%3D1&amp;xtz=300" target="_blank">Dell</a>.</em></p>
<p>Find out <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts">more about Sponsored Content</a>.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/small-business-tips-2015-3" >5 things you should do right now to scale your new business</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/yeti-coolers-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Dellhttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-photographer-has-made-a-business-of-secretly-capturing-marriage-proposals-2015-3This guy has been secretly photographing marriage proposals in New Yorkhttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-photographer-has-made-a-business-of-secretly-capturing-marriage-proposals-2015-3
Wed, 04 Mar 2015 15:03:00 -0500Christian Storm
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54f73fd469bedddd3e8a9c25-1200-924/proposal-photographer-2.jpg" border="0" alt="proposal photographer"></p><p>New York City-based photographer <a href="http://vladletophotography.com/">Vlad Leto</a> has an interesting job. The Russian native makes his living sneaking around parks, hiding in bushes, and secretly photographing people's most intimate moments. And they love him for it.</p>
<p>Leto is an "engagement photographer," as he calls it. He is hired by future husbands or wives to photograph, from a distance, their marriage proposal. The photographs he takes capture the surprise and delight of the couples in their special moment for years to come.</p>
<p>Since he began, Leto has photographed couples all over New York City and the surrounding area, from parks and bridge to boats and hotels. "I can do it with my eyes closed," he recently told <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/nyregion/like-a-spy-he-photographs-marriage-proposals-in-new-york-city.html">The New York Times</a>.</p>
<p>Leto shared a few of his favorite shots with us.</p><h3>Leto came to the US in 2010 and worked odd jobs before following his passion for photography and becoming a wedding photographer. Four years ago, he was approached by a man wanting Leto to photograph him when he proposed to his girlfriend on Governors Island. </h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54f71d776bb3f7677c8a9c26-400-300/leto-came-to-the-us-in-2010-and-worked-odd-jobs-before-following-his-passion-for-photography-and-becoming-a-wedding-photographer-four-years-ago-he-was-approached-by-a-man-wanting-leto-to-photograph-him-when-he-proposed-to-his-girlfriend-on-governors-island.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>Since then the idea — and the business — have taken off. Most people find Leto via his ad on Craigslist for "Secret Proposal Photography." Leto says he charges $250 to $400, depending on how complicated the proposal or location is.</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54f71d7c6bb3f7057c8a9c26-400-300/since-then-the-idea--and-the-business--have-taken-off-most-people-find-leto-via-his-ad-on-craigslist-for-secret-proposal-photography-leto-says-he-charges-250-to-400-depending-on-how-complicated-the-proposal-or-location-is.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>Leto has to be discreet so as not to be seen by the couple before the proposal. This involves sneaking around and hiding and waiting for the moment. When people around him see him skulking, they assume he's a member of the paparazzi and spying on a celebrity, Leto says.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54f71d7a69bedd966b8a9c25-400-300/leto-has-to-be-discreet-so-as-not-to-be-seen-by-the-couple-before-the-proposal-this-involves-sneaking-around-and-hiding-and-waiting-for-the-moment-when-people-around-him-see-him-skulking-they-assume-hes-a-member-of-the-paparazzi-and-spying-on-a-celebrity-leto-says.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-photographer-has-made-a-business-of-secretly-capturing-marriage-proposals-2015-3#he-always-gets-his-shot-leto-tells-us-hes-never-been-caught-before-a-proposal-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> Vlad Letohttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/small-business-tips-2015-35 things you should do right now to scale your new businesshttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/small-business-tips-2015-3
Mon, 02 Mar 2015 10:20:00 -0500Sponsor Post
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54d39c79eab8ea2644836c98-1200-924/guy-open-sign.jpg" border="0" alt="Guy open sign"></p><p>There's nothing quite like starting a business from scratch. It is one of the most rewarding — and challenging — things you can do.</p>
<p>After all, it requires putting everything on the line for an idea that may not resonate with the market, and there are plenty of potential missteps along the way. The risks are clear: Half of all businesses fail within the first five years, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/178787/why-new-companies-fail-during-first-five-years.aspx" target="_blank">according to Gallup research</a>.</p>
<p>To help you avoid that route, we have compiled five important tips to keep in mind when you do decide to start your own business.</p>
<h3>1. Study your competition, but don't overreact to what it is doing.</h3>
<p>Competition is inevitable, and while it is important to understand your market — and the other major players in it — there is a tendency to react too quickly to a competitor's every move. Remember to play the long game. Focus on your competitive advantage (read: what sets <em>your</em> business apart) rather than slashing prices, badmouthing your competition, or completely revamping your marketing strategy.&nbsp;</p>
<p>That said, research&nbsp;your competitors. Follow them on social media, sign up to receive <a href="http://www.google.com/alerts" target="_blank">Google Alerts</a> whenever they are mentioned, and consult new customers who have switched from another business. Just don't panic at what you find out — learn from it instead.</p>
<h3>2. Focus on one definable goal every year (and chart your progress every month).</h3>
<p>New Year's might be over, but it is not too late to set an actionable goal for your business. And before you say, "What do you mean? I have 100 goals!" remember that taking on too much at once can overwhelm you and make you&nbsp;<em>less</em>&nbsp;productive. So decide what your main priority will be. Whether renovating your store (e.g., painting the walls and getting new furniture), building up your presence on social media, or improving your customer-service skills, outline a plan of action for the year — and check in every month to see what progress you've made.</p>
<h3>3. Find the right technology solutions.</h3>
<p>When launching a business, you'll be confronted with a myriad of technology solutions. Don't get lost in a sea of products and services; choose the ones that make the most sense for your business and your budget. Start by tracking your week (or even month) to determine what your biggest pain points are, and then explore tools that will help alleviate them. For example, if you're having a hard time responding to customer e-mails, then you may need a service to help you stay on top of them.</p>
<p>Don't be afraid to ask plenty of questions before you commit to a solution. Know exactly what the service does and how it will benefit your business before you implement it.<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Whether it's&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/mobility-dell-mobility-solutions?c=us&amp;l=en&amp;s=bsd&amp;cs=04" target="_blank">mobile computing</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;or&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/security?c=us&amp;l=en&amp;s=bsd&amp;cs=04" target="_blank">network security</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the right technology solution will enable you to focus on what matters most: growing your business.</span></p>
<h3>4. Find a good mentor.</h3>
<p>When you're just starting out, it is crucial to find someone who can help steer you in the right direction. A mentor can ask tough questions, help you avoid common mistakes, and lend invaluable advice, especially if he or she has been in your shoes.</p>
<p>Finding the right mentor will not be easy, but plenty of tools are at your disposal. Scope social media, LinkedIn, and networking events to find an experienced entrepreneur with the right background, and then find a creative way to reach out. It can be as simple as sharing a link with someone on Twitter and seeing where the conversation goes. After landing a mentor, be sure to manage expectations. Ask yourselves: What do you both want to get out of this relationship? How often will you touch base? If you're on the same page, mentorship can be a meaningful and productive experience for both parties.</p>
<h3>5. Take steps to manage your stress.</h3>
<p>Creating a company can take a physical&nbsp;and mental toll. It's not just the long hours — there is also the uncertainty that goes along with starting something new. That's why it is crucial to monitor your energy levels and be proactive about reducing stress from the start.</p>
<p>Before you dive headfirst into your business, create boundaries. Give yourself fixed hours (working around the clock will only lead to "entrepreneurial burnout") and carve out time every day to recharge, whether by doing yoga, meditating, taking a walk, or reading a book.</p>
<p>And while it is tempting to want to take on everything yourself, recognize when to enlist help. If tasks like building your website drive you up the wall, you might be better off outsourcing them. After all, time and energy are resources you can't afford to waste.</p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Talk to a small business expert to learn more about why millions of small businesses choose Dell. <a href="http://dell.com" target="_blank">Visit their website</a> or call 1-877-414-Dell.</strong></p>
<p><em>This post is sponsored by <a href="http://www.dell.com" target="_blank">Dell</a>.</em></p>
<p>Find out <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts">more about Sponsored Content</a>.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/small-business-tips-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Getty Imageshttp://www.businessinsider.com/underwest-donuts-2015-2I just ate the most delicious doughnuts of my life at a New York City car washhttp://www.businessinsider.com/underwest-donuts-2015-2
Tue, 17 Feb 2015 13:14:00 -0500Christian Storm
<p>On the corner of 47th Street and 12th Avenue in Manhattan, New York, stands a nondescript car wash. All day long dirty cars go in one end and clean ones come out the other. You've seen hundreds just like it. But this car wash is different. Inside, there's a tiny counter where they serve freshly made artisanal doughnuts. Welcome to Underwest Donuts.</p>
<h3>If you didn't know it was there you might walk right past it, not knowing about the deliciousness inside.</h3>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54de73bc6da81121208b4569-1200-777/underwest donuts-50.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 50"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>But once you enter and walk past the wiper fluid and air fresheners ...</h3>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54de746deab8eab2398b4569-1200-800/underwest donuts-2.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 2" style="font-size: 1.17em;"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>... you find the tiny counter of Underwest Donuts. Opened in October by former <a href="http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/chanterelle/" data-track="Body Text Link: Internal: krang">Chanterelle</a> sous chef Scott Levine, the little operation specializes in delicious cake-like "sinkers."</h3>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54e36320ecad043441aa4708-1200-800/underwest donuts-31.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 31" style="font-size: 1.17em;"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>The counter is in the hallway, across from the glass windows of the car wash. Patrons and doughnut-makers can watch cars go by all day.</h3>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54e36387eab8eabe1b3e491a-1200-800/underwest donuts-15.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 15" style="font-size: 1.17em; color: #000000;"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>The shop offers a small assortment of homemade — or shall we say car-wash-made — doughnuts cooked fresh every day, with flavors like Coco Raspberry, Espresso Bean, and Cinnamon.</h3>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54e3641169bedd3109c66d1f-1200-800/underwest donuts-4.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 4" style="font-size: 1.17em;"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>Each doughnut is cooked on-site using fresh ingredients and a classic doughnut-maker. Below, a fresh batch of Coconut Limes was being prepared with a sour-cream batter.</h3>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54e36531eab8ea5a2e3e4916-1200-800/underwest donuts-32.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 32" style="font-size: 1.17em;"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>First we sampled the Maple Waffle, which came with a piece of waffle cone. It tasted fresh and delicious with a classic glaze.</h3>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54e36594ecad040846aa4709-1200-800/underwest donuts-11.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 11" style="font-size: 1.17em;"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>Of course we couldn't stop at one. We sampled the Brown Butter glazed doughnut, which stopped us in our tracks. It was seriously decadent, especially for a doughnut made in a car wash. Sweet and rich, this was the best doughnuts we'd ever eaten and absolutely warranted a return trip to Underwest, regardless of its out-of-the-way location.</h3>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54e3666b6bb3f74d6dc66d1b-1200-800/underwest donuts-35.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 35" style="font-size: 1.17em;"></p>
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>The shop serves coffee and espresso drinks, and in the summer it plans to have a window to serve customers walking by. We plan to come back to check it out.</h3>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54e36721ecad04d850aa4710-1200-800/underwest donuts-37.jpg" border="0" alt="underwest donuts 37" style="font-size: 1.17em; color: #000000;"></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-unique-vending-machines-2014-11" >30 Bizarre Vending Machines From Around The World</a></strong></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/underwest-donuts-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-food-ordering-tips-2014-1">These Dishes Will Totally Change The Way You Order Chinese Food</a></p> Christian Storm/Business Insider